A few times a year, I get to work with CS and EE professors from many well know universities from all around the USA. Most of these professors work with graduate students, but I always ask them about what both graduate and under-graduates students at their universities are taught about I/O and storage. In every case, the answer I get is, really nothing. Most say that I/O and storage is covered as a lesson in computer architecture. I am 100% sure that there are some universities that do teach about I/O and storage, but there are not many.

I know, for example, that Carnegie Mellon University has an extensive program, as does University of California Santa Cruz, as well as a few other schools. But these few schools are the exception, not the norm. I believe there needs to be an intensive program to teach both how to do I/O and the advantages and disadvantages of various languages and methods, along with teaching about file system design and I/O drivers issues in universities around the country.

This needs to be done as part of many classes in many disciplines. I believe that doing this would provide a competitive advantage for our country over the long term in many areas. I recently told the Information Storage Industry Consortium it needed to develop a program to teach in universities about proper usage of tape and how tape should fit into various I/O architectures. Maybe those of us that know and feel passionate about the topic should volunteer to do something about it at a local university. Count me in.

Henry Newman is CEO and CTO of Instrumental Inc. and has worked in HPC and large storage environments for 29 years. The outspoken Mr. Newman initially went to school to become a diplomat, but was firmly told during his first year that he might be better suited for a career that didn't require diplomatic skills. Diplomacy's loss was HPC's gain.

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